Save the Last Dance for Me
by TonksontheTardis
Summary: The ball before the 3rd Quarter Quell. Effie gets hit on and Haymitch gets jealous.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: **Save the Last Dance for Me

**Warnings: **None

**Disclaimer:** I don't own The Hunger Games, obviously. Everything belongs to their respective owners.

Effie Trinket sipped a light pink colored drink as she surveyed the ballroom. She neither knew nor cared if it was alcoholic, figuring that if there was ever a night to get a little drunk, this was the night. The only tributes that she had ever escorted to victory were going back into the arena, back to certain death. It was just her luck; after mentoring tributes for 10 years, her tributes finally won during the year before the Quarter Quell. And it just so happened that this year's Quell involved the re-reaping of all of the past tributes.

She should be happy, excited, eating and drinking to her heart's content. Quells only happen every twenty-five years and were cause for much celebration in the Capitol. That was why she was here at this ball. She had come to keep an eye on Katniss and Peeta, to make sure that they didn't do anything to hurt their reputation. She had drug Haymitch along, telling him that it was important to look presentable and go to social events. The more sponsors the better. He had begrudgingly agreed to come, if only for the alcohol.

It was physically painful to be standing in this ballroom, watching all of these old tributes—heroes from her childhood—mingle and attempt to make cheerful conversation when everyone knew that all but one of them would be dead in a short time. These people, these victors, were the people that she had looked up to all of her life. She had seen almost all of their Games, seen the bloody battles that got them to where they were now. These people were the reason that she became an escort and they were all lined up for slaughter right before her eyes. Again. And there was nothing she could do about it.

She turned back to the bartender and asked for another drink, something harder. The bartender gave her a smirk and a wink, turning to get her drink. He filled up her glass, placed it in front of her, and leaned on the counter in what Effie supposed he thought was a seductive way. He ran a hand through his perfectly coiffed , bright purple hair and flashed her another crooked grin. On any other day, she would have flirted back, maybe even going as far as asking him out. He was her usual type, but something about his blinding white smile and his green lipstick seemed fake, sleazy even.

"So, the great escort Effie Trinket drinks." He commented, as she picked up the glass without a word. "Didn't know you had it in that pretty little body of yours. Say, you want to have a good time tonight?" he asked, leaning over and whispering the last sentence in her ear. Suddenly, she felt a large hand wrap around her waist, pulling her close. She looked up, surprised, and noticed Haymitch Abernathy standing next to her. It took her a few seconds to register that the hand planted firmly on her waist belonged to him, of all people.

The bartender looked surprised as Haymitch gave him a dirty look.

"She's mine, purple-hair. Get your greasy paws off her." Haymitch growled, pulling her closer. The bartender let out a forced laugh.

"She's _yours?_ I think you might have had a bit too much alcohol again, filthy drunk. A pretty thing like her would never stand to be with a drunk like you." He snickered. Effie felt Haymitch tensing against her side. She grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him away from the bar.

"_What were you_ _thinking?_" she hissed, slapping his hand that still lingered on her waist.

"That bastard was trying to get you in bed. I thought you'd appreciate it, sweetheart." He smirked down at her.

"Don't you 'sweetheart' me, Haymitch. I can handle myself." She stepped closer to him, trying to look somewhat intimidating.

"I don't doubt your abilities, _princess. _I was trying to be nice. Remind me not to try that again." Effie stomped back to the bar angrily, walked over to the purple-haired man and kissed him full on the mouth. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Haymitch staring at them with a strange anger in his eyes. It looked almost…jealous.

**To be continued?**

**Leave reviews, please! Tell me if you liked it or not. **

**This is the first Hayffie fic that I've attempted to write in character, so it's probably not all that good. You can't improve if you don't try, right? **


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Here's Chapter 2! Sorry, I cranked this out really quickly because I'm leaving for vacation in a few days and I have to pack. I wanted to get this out ASAP. There will probably be a pretty big gap in between this and the next part.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own The Hunger Games

Effie tried to pull away from the purple-haired man, but his hands were clamped around her face. He was a lot stronger than he looked. She was too preoccupied with trying to get away from his vise-like grip, that she didn't notice Haymitch turn away from them and walk away, taking a huge swig from his bottle as he left.

The man eventually came up for air, giving Effie her opportunity to pull away. He looked surprised as he squinted through his almost-closed eyes. His lips were still puckered, giving him the appearance of a demented fish. Effie had to bite her lip to keep from bursting out laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation.

_What came over me? _She thought to herself. _I don't care about Haymitch. Why was I trying to make him jealous? __**What's in this drink?**_

__She shook her head to try and clear out the fuzzy feeling that currently resided there. She walked through the intricately designed double doors that led to the restrooms. She entered the ladies' room, but left as soon as she heard the familiar retching sounds echoing from the stalls, followed by the high-pitched giggles of the Capitol women. Totally

She stood in the hallway outside of the bathroom doors and acted as though she was waiting for someone to arrive. She didn't want anyone to think she was lurking outside of the bathrooms _alone._ The things it would do to her reputation! She eventually had enough of standing still and decided to venture back into the ballroom. She was greeted by Portia, Peeta's stylist, who apparently had been looking for her the entire night. Portia told her that she needed to go find Haymitch _right this second_, because he was thoroughly, completely, and embarrassingly drunk. Evidently, he was making quite the scene.

She followed Portia through the crowd, coming upon a crowd of men sitting next to each other on long, cream-colored couches arranged in a square. They were roaring with thunderous laughter at something. As she got closer, Effie realized that they were laughing at Haymitch, who was slurring everything he said and mumbling nonsense sentences.

"…An' then, the giraffe fell flat on 'er ass." Effie caught this garbled sentence amid the raucous laughter and she rolled her eyes, clearly agitated. She and Portia stood side by side and watched the scene commencing among the man. It appeared that Haymitch would say something ridiculous and then everyone else would laugh, causing Haymitch to say some other piece of nonsense. Portia shot Effie a look and whispered,

"He's going to ruin our chances. Those men with him are some of the sponsors. You have to get him out of there."

"_How?_" Effie hissed back. "He's too drunk to function and won't even listen to me when he's almost sober."

"I don't know, but Katniss and Peeta's lives depend on it, so _go._" Portia shoved her shoulder gently towards the crowd. Effie stumbled on her towering stilettos and barely managed to balance herself by grabbing onto the back of the couch. No one even glanced her way; they were all too busy laughing at Haymitch.

She marched over to Haymitch, gave him a sugary-sweet smile, and grabbed him roughly by the wrist. She pulled him to a standing position and found that his legs were surprisingly strong, considering how drunk he was acting.

"Come on Haymitch," She grinned sarcastically, "Remember, your hair appointment is in five minutes! Come, come come! You must look presentable for tomorrow." She put extra emphasis on her squeaky accent, just to annoy him. Haymitch shot her a glare and tried to pull away from her grasp, but she held firmly, shooting him back a similar look.

"I'm not coming with you, woman." He growled in a low voice that made Effie's stomach do flip-flops.

"Yes you are!" She tugged on his wrist harder, but he wouldn't budge.

"Never." He said as he looked down into her eyes. She glowered back at him and tried not to let herself get distracted by his stunning, sapphire blue eyes. She heard a Sponsor wolf-whistle behind her. She cringed slightly as he called,

"Get it, Abernathy!" This comment caused Haymitch to wrestle his wrist free from Effie's grasp and he started to walk away. She chased after him, gently nudging people out of her way as she followed him while he shoved his way through the throngs of people.

Suddenly, as they were approaching the exit, he turned sharply and almost ran straight into Effie, who was following closely behind him. He gave her a long look and said,

"What do you want, woman? You annoy the hell out of me constantly and you can't even leave me alone to be with my friends?"

"You were embarrassing us in front of the Sponsors!" she hissed.

"Maybe I was just doing that to push your buttons, sweetheart." He winked at her, smirked, and turned to walk away.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the Hunger Games. If I did, Effie and Haymitch would run away and be passionately in love forever and ever. Also I wouldn't be writing fanfic on a fanfic website if I actually owned the series…

**Author Notes:** Sorry for the extremely large gap between last chapter and this! I hope you like this chapter. Reviews are cool.

She followed him out of the exit and into a darkly lit alleyway behind the building in which the ball was being held. He leaned against the brick wall, pulled an alcohol bottle from the inside of his jacket, opened it with a pop, and took a long swig. Effie marched up to him and grabbed the bottle away from his hands. He clutched at the air and tried to grab it from behind her back, but failed rather badly.

"I'll give it back if you promise to go home, sleep it off, and promise to never embarrass us in front of the sponsors again."

"So, there's an 'us' now?" He smirked, making another grab for the bottle and managed to grab it from between her perfectly manicured fingernails. She was almost too infuriated to notice.

"That's the only thing you got from that? By 'us', I mean the entirety of District 12 and the people—yes, that includes me— who have worked so hard to keep these two alive, no thanks to _you._ I swear, if you don't go back in there and—"

She was cut off by his lips smashing clumsily against hers, as he pulled her body next to his. Before she even realized what she was doing, she started to kiss him back. Kissing him was nothing like she would have expected it to be; he wasn't sloppy, but gentle and slow. A few seconds later, she suddenly snapped to her senses and pulled away, but not before she felt her knees start to go a bit wobbly. She told herself that she hadn't felt anything, that she had drunk a bit too much alcohol, that's all.She resolved not to bring it up unless he did first. _I felt nothing, I felt nothing, I felt nothing._ She repeated her new mantra to herself as she tried to pull herself back together and to get the blush off of her face.

He looked more bemused than surprised when she pulled away from his tight grasp.

"Well, I can cross that off my bucket list now." He smirked. His voice was suddenly much clearer than it had been inside. The slurring was gone and his eyes were focused intently on her, not drifting off into the distance like they had been only a few minutes ago. She looked at him in surprise and he looked back at her amusedly.

"Are-are you not drunk?" she managed to spit out in her flustered state.

"Princess," he said in a derogatory tone, "did you really think that a professional drunk could get completely wasted in that time? C'mon, give me some credit. Maybe with the hard liquor at home, but not with these damn, frilly, Capitol drinks." He leaned up against the brick wall and reopened his alcohol bottle.

"Then what, may I ask, is that?" She gestured towards the glass container in his hands.

"This?" He waved the bottle in the air. "The bottle is from home, but I ran out of whiskey this morning and only had Capitol shit to refill it with. This is the stuff _you're_ used to, sweetheart."

"Then why were you acting like that in there?" She pointed angrily at the door that led into the ballroom. "You were acting like an…like an…_ass."_

"Oh, the princess cursed! How _dare_ she?" He said, mimicking her Capitol accent. "Are you really that clueless?" He asked as he switched back to his usual, gruff voice.

"Clueless? About what?" She was more confused than angry now, as she wondered what she had missed back in there. He ran his hands angrily through his greasy, brown hair and sighed harshly.

"You're not really gonna make me say it."

"Say what?" she asked while she tapped her stiletto impatiently on the concrete sidewalk. _Why can't he just say whatever it is that he needs to say and leave me alone for the rest of the night? He's already wasted enough of my time out here in this alleyway. Is this about that kiss? That was odd, even for him. Well, he didn't bring it up, so I'll be damned if I do. Oh look, the __**princess**__ cursed. Fuck him and his derogatory attitude towards me. Fuck him for being such a good kisser. Wait a second…Did I just actually think that? Oh dear, I really am losing my mind. _

"Dammit, Effie." She started slightly at the use of her real name. "That dick was hitting on you in there and I didn't like it. You happy now?"

"I'm afraid I still don't understand." She said in a slow tone, as if she were talking to a particularly stubborn 2 year old, "Why do you care who hits on me and who doesn't? It's none of your business."

"It is too my damn business!"

"_WHY DO YOU CARE?"_ Effie asked. She felt like she knew the answer already in the back of her mind, but she kept denying it. All of the signs pointed to yes; the kiss, the jealously. She just wasn't about to admit that she was kind of enjoying seeing him flustered.

"Dammit it, Effie. I think I love you and I can't fucking stand to see douchebags crawling all over you, trying to get into your pants. You don't deserve that." He ran his hand through his hair again and drained the rest of the alcohol from the bottle.

"Are you serious?" Effie asked him, feigning incredulity. "I always thought you hated me."

"I did, I always have. Until last year. I sobered up for a few weeks there and realized that I was working next to the most beautifully infuriating person I've ever met. Are you happy now? You got me to admit it? I fucking love you, Effie Trinket. Always will."

**OHH, drama! How will she react to this sudden profession of love? Will she agree? Will she kick him where the sun don't shine?**

**Tune it next time!**

**Same bat story, same bat website **

**(I'm on a HMB kick right now…)**


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